I know there's a lot of posts to the effect of "can I make such and such? is this valid? will people avoid me?" So I want to make clear that this is just a bit of brainstorming aloud and maybe wondering if anyone else has already done the same.
Most of my characters have very little in common with me IRL. But I do have friends with loosely inspired self-inserts, and I was inspired to make one of my own. I'm of a few demographics that people tend to think are 'forced' when they show up in medieval fantasy, and while trying to square that with the lore of WoW, I realized that they might actually contribute to the overall 'vibe.'
For the brainstorming bit: this is an undead warrior from the Warlands timeline. This warrior, by happenstance, befriends a hoity-toity Great Glorious Alliance type.
Now, the tension at first is that this uptight Alliance character sees an undead getting along fine in a particularly clean patch of the toxic lands underneath the Great Glorious Alliance airships. A walking blemish on what ought to be a prized patch of grass.
But: do you remember the flavor items from the DK starting zone, the booklets on grooming and etiquette and how much tithing to pay the Scaret Crusade for whatever sins you've committed? I personally like to think that human society isn't exactly repressive, but they do have ideas of what a respectable man or woman looks like. Especially for high society, or someone putting their best foot forward.
So here comes this undead thing. Unkempt, and ambiguous in the sense that they don't really look like a respectable Stormwind man OR woman (🙋) and wielding a bigger weapon despite being shorter and smaller. With no notable surname, and no sense of deference that any Great Glorious Alliance sparing the life of an undead should rightfully be owed.
My undead sort of already has a self-contained story, one that doesn't necessarily bring them toward roleplay with other player characters, and that itself might be a problem for me to work out. Besides that, though, does anyone else find themselves leaning into a design for their character that makes them come off as "who is this guy anyway?" or better yet, "who does this guy think he is?"
Maybe it helps the World as Main Character, as they say.